ABSTRACT
This lecture will explore ways of thinking about ourselves and the systems we create and use, and what they mean for Ergonomics and Human Factors.
During the last century, interesting developments in understanding the world have arisen from the embracing of uncertainty. Rather than avoiding uncertainty in a deterministic fashion, these world views are non-deterministic, non-linear and holistic. Such ways of thinking and understanding help us to deal with complexity. How does the discipline of Ergonomics and Human Factors work in such worlds?
The late Professor John Wilson recognised the implications that a ‘Systems’ world view has for the Ergonomics and Human Factors development teams. In order to develop a system that has non-deterministic or emergent properties, the team developing it has to have certain properties such as flexibility and interconnectedness in order to recognise emerging interdependencies. Yet we know that many organisations that are tasked with developing complex systems are not structured in a manner that is amenable to working in this way.
